Entrepreneur interview assignment

INTRODUCTION Richard Branson, an English business tycoon and the founder of Virgin Airlines once said, “ Business opportunities are like buses, there’s always another one coming. ” This quote signifies that there are always an opportunity in entrepreneurship in life if there is a will to take the risk and motivated to do so. Entrepreneurship roots from the word entrepreneur, which according to www. wikipedia. com, it can be defined as one who undertakes innovations, finance and business acumen in an effort to transform innovations into economic goods.

Entrepreneurs are risk takers, willing to roll the dice with their money or reputation on the line in support of an idea or enterprise. They willingly assume responsibility for the success or failure of a venture and are answerable for all its facets. This is what we going to learn while doing this report. As stated in the task outline given, the goal of this assignment is to understand the experiences, motivation, and lessons learned by someone who have founded a business before. In this report, we choose RM Batik, a well known batik manufacturer in Kuantan, Pahang as our research company.

Batik is a cloth that traditionally uses a manual wax-resist dyeing technique. It has been a fabric for traditional dress and costumes of the Malays, especially for the people in the east coast states of West Malaysia. Pahang batik has been in existence for decades and has been part of the small cottage industry in the state. Although not as famous or popular as the batik of Terengganu and Kelantan, Pahang batik has, nevertheless, thrived as a small industry in the periphery of the fame and popularity of the Terengganu and Kelantan batik.

In Pahang, you can find a few batik makers in Kuantan and in the few small towns on the coastal road to Terengganu. One of the most popular and famed Pahang batik producer in Kuantan is RM Batik, founded by the late Ramli Malek, a renowned Pahang artist, batik designer and entrepreneur. RM Batik small factory is located at Tanah Putih, Kuantan, on the left side of the road just after the bridge over the Kuantan River. ENTREPRENEUR INFORMATION RM Batik was previously owned by the late Ramli Malek. He is one of the notables depicted in the Muzium Tokoh Pahang in Kuantan.

He was one of the cultural personalities who contributed towards the advancement of Pahang batik in design and batik making. Sadly, he died in his thirties while trying to help save two boys who were drowning at the Balok beach during bad weather. He was an active person who was a King Scout during his schooldays. Today, Ramli Malek’s beloved brother, Mr. Ahmad Ashaary bin Abd Malek take over the family business and the current owner that runs their batik legacy. Mr. Ashaary can be contact at the company’s number, 09-5139631 or his mobile number, 013-9803888. RM Batik is situated at E592, Tanah Putih Ferry, 25100, Kuantan, Pahang.

Mr. Ahmad Ashaary is a Malaysian, age 54 years old this respective year. When he took over the business, he has no working experience and his education level is Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia (SPM). COMPANY’S BACKGROUND RM Batik was founded on 11th November 1977. It is previously known as BRM Batik. The capital for this business was RM40, 000. BRM Batik did export their well-known batiks to several countries, such as Japan, France, and Australia. Previously, BRM Batik has five batik factories and showrooms in Kuala Lumpur and 200 staffs all together under the great management of the backbone of this company, Ramli Malik.

Unfortunately, this hardworking founder died while trying to save two boys who were drowning at the Balok beach during bad weather. Regarding his lost, the company also suffers a major loss, which is RM1. 2 million losses from the rejection of batiks that has been requested by Japan. According to Mr. Ashaari, the rejection occurred when Japan can’t tolerate and can’t wait much longer to get the batiks ordered. For the record, producing a high quality piece of batik fabric is time consuming and requires a high degree of skill, patience and commitment.

The process may take between three weeks and one month for one piece. Added to the problem, there are also other factors that contributed to the company’s lost, including the company’s financial crisis and Malaysian economic uncertainty. In order to save the family business, Mr. Ashaari took over the company and makes a huge step in the history of BRM Batik. He moved the company to a small location around his house in Kuantan, Pahang and shut all the factories and showrooms in Kuala Lumpur. He then builds a small sized batik factory on his land, which worth RM4000.

He also changed the factory name from BRM Batik to RM Batik. RM Batik has developed so well and stays stable until today. RM Batik still active in batik manufacturing, alongside other goods such as craft products and local souvenirs. This company is also the proud uniform supplier for Club Med Cherating, Pahang. With the current eight workers and RM250, 000 sales turnover per year, RM Batik keep on striving to be the best batik manufacturer in Malaysia while preserve the Malaysian batik as it is rapidly vanishing nowadays. FOUNDING STORY

Mr Asyaari chooses this venture because he just finished his high school back in the 1980’s. After his beloved brother passed away, he can’t find any other way besides saving their family business. Plus, he was jobless and moneyless. He sees this as the only opportunity for him to keep the brother’s memory. He chose this business on that particular time as it was fated. Things just happen when it’s happen. He sees this as his chance and accepted it with an open hand. And the two people who motivates and inspire him the most are his late brother, Ramli Malek and his late father, Abdul Malek. Mr.

Asyaari always keeps his late brother’s advice in his mind. His late brother always inspired him to work hard and bring RM Batik around the globe. With the help and advice from his late father and late brother, Mr. Asyaari keep on sustaining the company’s growth and the batik attractiveness, and will ensure that the beautiful art form of batik will not be lost for the future Malaysian generations. Mr. Asyaari is one tough man who stands still for the Malaysian batik tradition. He has no fear, as he’s a risk taker and not being afraid to take a chance. According to him, the greatest failure is to not try.

Once you find something you love to do, be the best at doing it. He really hopes that batik will be promoted and marketed onto the global platform with greater vigor. New fashion styles and designs were being adopted in RM Batik, and the new entrepreneurs of batik experiment on innovative use of batik on a variety of fabrics. He also hopes that Malaysian batik will achieved international recognition. LESSONS LEARNED Mr. Asyaari added that the most important lessons that he had learned about founding and running a company is that the cover-your-face mentality of the workplace will get you nowhere.

The follow-your-gut mentality of the entrepreneur has the potential to take you anywhere you want to go. He also mentions that the one of the key success in business is keep your network alive. In the other hand, the greatest difficulties he ever had are on the early years of the business. Re-building a business is not an easy task after all, Rome was not build in a day. The hardest decision he ever made is to shut down his brother’s factories in Kuala Lumpur. The key reasons why this venture still succeed after facing major loss in 1970s is never give up. According to Mr.

Asyaari, entrepreneurship is all about survival, and learns how to survive. Running the shop in the first few years taught him that the critical ingredient in business is getting off from your chair and do something. It’s as simple as that. A lot of people have ideas, but there are few who decide to do something about the ideas. Not tomorrow. Not next week, but today. The true entrepreneur is a doer, not a dreamer. According to Mr. Asyaari, one of the most crucial things in business is, Public Relations (PR). He believes that PR plays a key role in helping business industries create strong relationships with customers.

He also believes that no matter how hard your day is, keep on smiling. Smiling lowers your blood pressure and will make you feel better. Mr Asyaari also advice us to be calm when we reach any obstacle, instead, he ask us to turn it into an opportunity. All of us have the choice. We can overcome and be a winner, or we can allow the obstacle to overcome us and be a loser. The choice is yours and yours alone. He said it is far better to be exhausted from success than to be rested from failure. The most important personal lessons learned by Mr. Asyaari are never giving up on whatever you do.

The world might treat us bad today, but anything can happen tomorrow. Always remain positive and optimistic. Enjoy your business and love it. Love the experience, learn from it and you will have what you dream of. CONCLUSION We gain a lot of priceless experience while doing this report. Mr. Asyaari is one of kind. He gave us loads of useful tips in running a business and motivates us. We learned that success is not about money, status or fame, it is about finding a field that we love and bring us joy and self-sufficiency and a sense of contributing to the world.

We are amaze with Mr. Asyaari’s spirit and determination. He went through few big losses in his life, yet, he’s still able to rise and shine. We believe that not many people can survive if they were in Mr. Asyaari’s shoes. We salute him for his success and the story behind this success. We are so blessed to meet him. After all this while we always think that business is all about making money, but he helps us to look beyond that. We had to make our own living and our own opportunity. Don’t just sit down and wait for the opportunities to come.

We should get up and create those opportunities. This research also taught us to dream big and never give up in order to pursuit it. Business is all about taking chances. If we’re afraid to go out of our comfort zone, then we might fail. An entrepreneur is someone who tends to bite off a little more than he can chew and quickly learn how to chew it. Networking is also the key factor in a successful business. Network is the other way of promoting your products or services. If you have good networks, the chance of your business to rise is big and vice versa.